The Dune novels are like radioactive decay. Each book is half as good as the one that precedes it. I made it to God Emperor and then quit. Wish I’d stopped at the first.
Each book is less than the last. I would recommend not to read past book 4. They really get bad past that book. I was warned by a clerk at the used bookstore when I first read the series. Hopefully you’ll listen to me, I didn’t listen to him. And I can never get that time back, and brain bleach just doesn’t work.
I was a bookseller during the peak of booktok and I can confirm that the covers were a continual issue for us. Every few months there would be a company wide email making sure we hadn’t misplaced erotica in the teen section, and it is genuinely impossible to tell at a glance whether you are looking at a teen romance or smut with this style of illustration.
I would have women on the daily walking up to me and asking for the smuttiest stuff we have and then confirming that they have already read everything I could list for them. We had young teenage girls coming in to buy Haunting Adeline, and we would have to talk to their parents in the store to make sure they knew what they were about to allow their kid to buy. One mother said I know, she will find it somewhere else if I don’t let her buy it here, and gave in.
I never once had an awkward interaction with any man buying even the most pornographic manga, but weekly would have multiple women asking for spicy books openly and invasively. If the male customers were speaking to me the way the female customers were, with the same frequency, I think I would’ve quit.
I think it is specifically this cutesy cover design language, and the childish terminology such as ‘booktok’ and ‘spicy’, that give this genre innocence and plausible deniability when it comes to accusations of readers, or the content of the books themselves, being inappropriate. It made it difficult as a bookseller, and difficult as a human, to reconcile the ethics of the whole situation. It’s legitimate and fair for any adult woman to read the books she enjoys reading, but once you start to speak openly in public and on the internet about spicy or smutty content in books, just know that you have a 14 year old girl tagging along with you to the bookstore now, and 18 year old me has to talk to her parents about it.
Needless to say you hit the nail on the head with this piece.
As someone who's not on the clock app or social media and doesn't read smut books, this is a whole new world of wild behaviour to me. I feel like since COVID, people have just become absolutely feral and have no real understanding of appropriate public behaviour anymore. I used to work in a public library and the spiciest shit I ever dealt with was sweet old ladies borrowing absolute truckloads of black label Mills and Boons. They didn't want to have a conversation about it though!
I worked at a public library and the things I heard from teen girls to little ole ladies were quite spicy. But maybe either people felt comfortable around me or maybe where I worked was cut from a different cloth?
I live in a country where there's laws against sexual harassment in the workplace and making a public library employee have a conversation with you about your masturbation literature is harassment. It's not appropriate.
I guess the only thing I'm pushing back against then is that these things are something that has happened as a result of covid or tiktok. I worked in a library prior to both.
the part you list about daughters coming in to Haunting Adeleine doesn't feel new to me. I was an avid reader when I was young and I'm no spring chicken now. I was reading stephen king and everyone was reading flowers in the attic in fourth grade. VC andrews was the hot thing to read and our parents didn't care. I remember regarding covers my mother only ever intervened on one book called "The very last virgin of hobeck high" - because of the title. It wasn't spicy in the slightest and instead was a story about a teen facing those kinds of pressures.
and holy hell, whats been going on with Warrior Cats for a long time makes me ashamed to not have read them and knowing what kids were reading.
The covers of many of these books did not offer very much of a warning. (I do take issue with the covers above, but I can tell you exactly where some of these covers are modelled on and its not tiktok, its modelled on capitalizing on the success of fanfiction on places like episode interactive and maintaining the market who originally grew up on those kinds of stories as they pass into adult hood).
I'm not saying that there isn't a conversation to be had (we can always improve as a society), or that how we experience the delivery hasn't ridden the flutters of the future into the present, but from personal experience, many of these things are not a new phenomena in the slightest; they just look different in certain ways because the future always looks a little different than the past.
Books with sex scene were always popular even when I was a teenager in the 90s. But we were also reading widely and just happening upon a sex scene in a book we were already reading became a point of discussion. If it's got to a point that people refuse to read books they can't masturbate to, that's akin to porn addiction.
I think my question would be, given the very real risk of child grooming using erotica materials - do we think there is an actual benefit to the kids reading this badly written, smutty crap? If not, we err on the side of caution until we're sure young adults are mature enough for the adult reading section.
I honestly have no problem with making sure adult books are in the adult section; I also think the covers need a redesign as well; content warnings should be in the front of the book, as well as basic spice levels. I think this would go a long way to helping parents and kids be able to talk about book selections.
My feeling though is that this underlying issue isn't a new thing. From violence and sex in books (literally, I am begging you all to read the warrior cats series. Its craycray), to misleading covers, to people chitter chatting about it, to the way we police women's sexuality etc. If I had to guess I've got over a hundred pulp novels in my house where I could open a page to a rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment or other similar scene. There are some new aspects (booktok, online access, though, by my teens people were uploading pdfs) because time passes but the core is still there. As a fourth grader I could access any book that I wanted.
Out of curiosity, do you have any research on people using smutty books as a path to grooming? (one from actual sociological scientists, im a little weary of pearl clutchers passing concerns off as causative rather than interrogative. Concerns are valid, but that doesn't make them causative data). not a gotchya or disagreement, I'm more curious and like to learn more about the world.
That's not really something I'd like in my search history 😀but here in the UK you can be investigated for child abuse if you are knowingly providing media to children with sexual content for the purposes of grooming. Its well-known that paedophiles and groomers introduce children to explicit material to normalise their abuse, so it depends on how it is used, but its not a stretch to say that sexually explicit books with cartoonish covers could help groomers to provide young teens with material to influence them (or alternatively, to use to blackmail them with, by telling their religious or conservative parents they have these at home). Personally, I just don't think its worth the risk when there are so many options to keep this material away from young people. There are lots of uk based sites about protecting children from grooming, such as the NSPCC or CEOP, which might give a bit of background if that helps?
ahh. Ok. I see now. Yeah, the childlike covers really get under my skin tbh. I know how some of them got there (literally one I just saw is emulating episode interactive) but if I'm going to read adult material I'm not really interested in teen covers. Gives me the ick.
the amount of murder, infantacide, gr*pe, emotional and physical torture, abuse, including between parents and children, and romantic partners, incest, etc. makes game of thrones look tame.
After four kids, spanning a huge swath of time of warrior cats and several volumes in my house, I'm not exaggerating. You might not have clocked them because you were a kid, or you might not have clocked them because they weren't written to be smut. But what I wrote is in there in the series somewhere and more than once.
I felt very much the same way. I worked in a bookstore while I was 23, and I would feel so awkward having to ring-out customers who were clearly teenagers that wants books that I very well knew had inappropriate content for their age; yet there wasn't anything I could really do about it. I believe I had a conversation once with a coworker, who was a teenager herself, wherein we were wondering, "Should we start carding people for these books?" I don't think that would be a good solution, mind you, but that conversation exemplified just how uncomfortable all this made us. There were a few times parents had to be talked to, but most of the time they either weren't there or they didn't care because they themselves were fans of the book.
You are unbelievably the only voice of reason I've heard in the community on this topic. It doesn't need to be so sensitive... I'm not coming after you for loving smut. I just don't want it marketed to children, okay? Why are you mad about that 💀 the quality of books are just not the same anymore either... Authors are having to sell a new fetish instead of a new world, theme, idea, conflict, etc. I've dnf-ed so many books because you actually just sound like a horny 14 year old trying to be relevant with tiktok lingo. I thought this was supposed to be an old timey fantasy realm 😭
So much respect to you for putting this out there. Every single word of this was so true to me. The lack of ability to grasp nuance is so incredibly confusing given the community, as you pointed out. This is what we do! Readers don’t only understand nuance they SEEK IT. We seek character, relationship, and plot development.
I absolutely read spicy books. I also read tons of other stuff. If I told another grown up that all I ever watched on tv was “too hot to handle” people would think I was stupid and vapid. Why is this different?
I feel so seen reading this. I've shared the same perspective for a while but received such insane backlash for voicing even the smallest bit of concern when I was on bookstagram. People who want to analyze this concept are called "anti-feminist" or "prude" almost immediately just for wanting to take a deeper look at why the romance genre has become so shallow and superficial.
They can get pretty aggressive when you point a mirror back at them. For a group of “readers” the community is surprisingly unwilling to analyze anything they consume lol
I think aggressive commentary is not isolated to MAGA. Go in the comment section in Robert Reich’s substack (you can’t get more polar opposite than that) and make the slightest critique and you will be verbally flogged, drawn and quartered.
I could not agree more with your argument here: “The quality of the writing has lowered and the books have a higher density of sex scenes.” My husband and I (avid readers, writers, who met on BookTok…but like, a different side 😂) are constantly talking about the state of writing. To your point, yes it has always existed but my argument for the past 3-4 years is while it has always existed, it hasn’t always been the point of fiction to the degree that it is now. YA is no longer safe for their intended audience.
As someone well versed in addiction, that’s what I contribute a large portion of the responses to. It DOES change the chemical composition of your brain. It DOES have an affect on your body and mind. It is its own kind of addiction.
I completely agree with you Eric and appreciate your vulnerability about your struggle with porn! Voices and stories like yours are so important in the spaces.
I was always a reader, I started with medieval romance novels and Harry Potter. I’ve also been writing ever since. I was not on BookTok and once I discovered, I thought it was about books. Well… it still is, don’t get me wrong, but it seems like sex is more important than anything on it. I’m not asking a Pulitzer Prize, just some basic foundation for the book to make sense. My first dark romance left me a bit shocked but also curious. Two years later and 200 books read, I am in a reading slump that I never experienced before, I feel so tired of overused tropes and trigger warnings (remember when books didn’t even have that?). I’m currently curating my experience and recommendations outside of bestsellers and into a little Discord group and Reddit. Also found a really nice YouTuber who is amazing in her honest reviews. Anyway, thank you for sharing this, made me feel less alone here.
I'm curious why trigger warnings are such a bad thing?
Its extremely painful for someone with (c)PTSD to randomly stumble upon a trigger, and something like 10% of the population has had (c)PTSD at some point in their lives.
Are a few plot points being "spoiled" that much more important than someone's week being ruined by a flashback?
Oh, I sorry, I probably misspoke here! I don’t mean that the trigger warnings spoils the book. I believe the use of it is valid and necessary, the question I made was regarding the absence of it on literature before recently. It makes me wonder if the list of trigger warnings is a natural and welcome evolution in the industry to create a more safer experience for the reader, or if we’re venture more and more into dark themes to feed this new audience that wants it, that we are ending up with the need to have these type of warnings! Why did we not have it back then? Did we have those dark romance books without the warnings? Or is this a new genre that requires this signaling to protect the reader?
That is an excellent point. It's perhaps a parallel "trauma porn" arms race alongside the sexual one, having more to do with being talked about for being the most dark rather than genuinely wanting to discuss these real issues.
I recently read some older books without these warnings and felt pretty unhappy about it. I am not interested in reading rape scenes, especially in any spicy or unexamined way, or to unnecessary further a protagonists growth. My kid ran into a book in a little free library and when the book was done and I was like, oh the title looks good I want to read that, the teen then listed a long list of things that were in it that I should get into a mindset for, knowing my reading capacity is limited. We wrote the warnings I wish had been there into the front of the book.
I pretty much have left older books alone because authors of that age don't seem to know or care what they have (especially ridiculous age gaps) and I'm not into stumbling on unpleasant surprises. I've only regained my capacity to read physical books and part of that upward build is to not become frustrated or upset by the content and I think, despite some more elitist readers/writers tendencies to judge anyone who doesn't follow their idea of what real reading is, thats ok. Reading is reading.
Looking at even shakespeare, or much older stories, I think this is a very long history of darkness, but in the past we didn't seem to care who we dumped it on or instead we went to great lengths to take that choice away from people. At some point we decided it was a good thing to give people choice by being upfront about whats in books, and after decades of being a reader, which some unfortunate interruptions I'm heavily inclined to agree.
Horror is my genre of choice and I can't tell you how many "classics" of the genre from the 70s and 80s I have noped out of due to the absolute misogyny dropping off the page. The inclusion of more diverse voices and perspectives in this genre has really improved it as a whole. Maybe romance needs a shake up like this.
Trigger warnings don’t work. They merely induce unnecessary anxiety. And while Americans may claim to have PTSD at a rate of 10%, that’s absolute nonsense. CPTSD by the way is entirely made-up and has no diagnostic criteria. You pay your doctors far too much money to just tell you all what you want to hear, which isn’t even to discuss the number of narcissists who self-diagnose for victim points.
True PTSD is incredibly rare because of the obvious fact that humans get over things. The brutal facts of our species’ history obviously preclude everybody becoming catatonic whenever something bad happens and then never being able to function again.
Stop coddling, start arse-kicking. It helps nobody to treat them like a delicate flower.
I've heard of this little book called Pride and Prejudice. No sex scenes or sex talk of any kind, but it's managed to grab a relatively good sized audience. (Myself included. Best romance novel of all time <3)
How many times can you resell P&P until the returns start diminishing? If we want to stop Booktok we’re going to have to give them something new to read once in a while.
Post of aesthetic, historical or cultural significance.
You are 1000% right, particularly about the fact that booktok girls are not, in fact, shamed like men are shamed. I know women like this irl and it's jarring to hear someone openly talking about their porn (and it is porn) tastes, not only with other women but with/in front of men. This is such normalised behaviour online that it has actually breached containment and people now think it's okay to do this in public.
We are living in a culture that does not respect boundaries around sex, we call this 'sex positive', but it's no wonder actual predators are able to blend in seamlessly, they look normal because everyone else is so weird.
I really liked your post. But what makes me always perplexed is that,just for the cartoonish cover, icebreaker became the symbol of “Booktok is just full of porn addicted”. I’ve read Hannah Grace’s book, and I’m a reader that doesn’t focus on romance or erotica. I find that her books often have a positive and healthy perspective on sex life. Use of protections is always mentioned and discussed betwenn the couple. The protagonist of Icebreaker goes to therapy, and we see her speaking about her issues and insecurities. In general, the main protagonists always have some family/confidence or other type of issue that they analize in their pov. I found the men pov always respctfull, sexy but in more of a funny and comic tone. So I’m just sad that one of the few romance books I read are associated with this discourse 🥲
Also, as much as problematic it is that these books end up in the kids section due to the covers, I always thought that it was a way to make more comfortable reading these books in public or bring them around. I personally feel uncomfortable with the half naked man showing covers.
I read icebreaker and there was a scene where some girls were talking about a male character accidentally making someone pregnant and they said, and I quote: “it’s not his fault, he doesn’t know a lot about pregnancy” and he was a 24 year old athlete having tons of sex lol also I unfortunately felt like the only thing they discussed or talked about in that book was sex. All the time. So I think is a fair example to use, sadly
The books don't need to have naked man covers, but it's not a choice between that or cartoons. There's a wide world of possibilities that don't resemble children's books.
This! Like, we could keep cartoon art covers and just make them clearly romance and that would help. Ali Hazlewood covers are like that and I don’t think anyone would put them in the kid section on accident. Jasmine Guillory too!
This, but also I personally really love Ali Hazelwood. I like that her characters are relatable and the plot is well constructed. her level of spice is tame compared to a lot of other authors but I appreciate that. It feels like a true romance novel.
I also don’t love when some of these novels romanticise bad behaviour/morals from either party (borderline abusive). It makes me worry that young women will read it and think that it’s acceptable to treat others or be treated in a negative way.
I used to think the same thing about Ali. But her last 3 books have been sheer erotica with no substance and unfortunately she is right up there with everyone else now :(
If you're gonna read spice in public, at least own it (or get an e-reader)... it makes me more uncomfortable having a childish cartoon on adult reading material, same as I find pornified anime really gross. Every person I know who's into erotic anime (and 100% of them are male) also have paraphilias and fetishes.
I like the ideas generally, but the average age of the onset of menstruation is 12. A normal range is considered 10-15. I was nearly 13 when I got my first period and my doctors were surprised it took so long. Just because your friends got theirs later doesn’t mean you got your abnormally young.
Yeah, this take struck me as odd. The average age for first periods has been steadily declining over the years, due to a number of factors (diet, general health, etc). Getting your period at age 12 is pretty normal.
1. Thank you so much for opening up to us about your experience as a young woman / the impact these books and stories had on your character arc so to speak.
2. As a mother to a toddler (a young woman) I am so grateful you wrote this publication. I am an indie author and feel like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole wondering "why am I the only one seeing this?" "why is everyone fighting to keep the illogical emotional connection / argument to spice etc. instead of conceding that maybe there is a bit of logic to both sides?"
MAYBE when I open instagram I shouldn't see the works c*ck and p&ssy in a quote advertising a book? My husband read it and also said "is this ... a fourteen year old?"
3. I saw Rebecca Ross' Q and A for new adult fantasy and was almost in tears at how she had to make a separate story to address the spice questions. Every single person (almost) was only concerned about the spice. How much. How juicy. How descriptive? What do they do together? *I know you didn't love letters of enchantment series but I just could not swallow how disappointed I felt by the masses only asking about THAT out of all the story building and lore and writing process.*
4. While everyone is so angry and punching their fists at the sky about any piece of nuance brought to the table, they don't realize that they are still being profited off of by the publishing companies. Women's pleasure is now "popular" and trending but it's not for the benefit of us. It's still for the benefit of capitalistic / masculine demand. Wake up!
5. When I brought up that 90% of women who were murdered by their sig others or ex's, that they were stalked first, I lost so many followers. All I said was, I can't read stalker romances because I know this fact and can't unknow it! Who would argue with that? I don't care how cute you make it.
6. Ok! I guess I better go write my own book now lol thank you
I can’t deal with it anymore, why are we romanticising infantile men? ITS SO VERY ANNOYING, because I also think the worst is that it’s SO NOT an actual portrayal of true intimacy in all its imperfection, once again setting unrealistic expectations, creating an illusion on many things inside and outside of the bedroom. Character growth? Plot? Where is it? It sets unrealistic standards ON BOTH SIDES, for appearance and personality, never mentioning the flaws of anyone, aside from having a tragic past. I would say this whole dumbing down of books, has come from the anti-intellectualism which is perpetuated by social media (of course at the forefront of it it’s TikTok)
i disagree with this take- ive always been a booktok hater but recently ive changed my mind and I feel like this take misunderstands the publishing industry, gender roles, and erotica at large- sorry for how long this review is! ik it seems a bit agressive but honestly it just feels like looking back at my past opinions- so i feel like writing my thoughts out as i continue to develop my opinions rn
“Why do current booktok romance covers look like they could be sharing a shelf with Charlotte’s web if they’re filled with erotic content?” Illustration as a cover style isn't inherently juvenile. Many adult genres, including literary fiction and thrillers, use illustrated covers. Plus, covers that look more like normal and illustrated are less embarrassing to read or have in your house. Also a book having an innocent-looking cover while containing explicit content isn’t new or unique to BookTok. also almost all these books contain explicit trigger warnings at the start- i doubt many people (upon reading the first few pages of the book) wouldnt know what they where getting into
“Teen girls get their periods earlier as well” okay ive never heard this and i looked for some studies but didnt find any
also you talk about how “It’s okay for us to agree to disagree” but immediately say disagreement is like suspicious “makes me wonder which side they are on”
“The quality of the writing has lowered and the books have a higher density of sex scenes.” okay, yeah, i agree with this as a whole. however, this feels largely anecdotal. while i agree, there isnt really any evidence (or even an objective metric) to prove that writing quality has gone down, and I dont necessarily think more sex scenes is a bad thing. i think sex can be a powerful metaphor or just generally increase engagement with books that lead to people thinking more critically about things. but sentence this stood out to me because it highlighted what I see your current gripe with booktok and other publications is
“The industry is just riding that money wave, they don’t care about feminine expression, sexual freedom, etc, etc. No publisher cares about those things, they just care about money.” Yes, money trumps. it always does. BUT the industry getting that influx of money means that these publishers can take on riskier books. A lot of books that you or I enjoy likely wouldnt have been published if the industry didnt feel secure. these “potato chip” novels as you say prop up the industry. they enable the industry to produce more books that DO focus on “feminine expression” or similar.
“And if that is your ONLY connection with reading, how much sex you can find in the book, I am not so sure you really like reading. I am sorry. I am just not lol” you read these books. you enjoy reading these books. youre a reader
“You don’t and never have accepted this level of sexual freedom for the opposite gender.
We in fact shame men for their sexual addictions.”
okay saying women dont accept this level of sexual freedom from men is such a crazy take that im just gonna hope im misunderstanding it. also, 7/10 men watch porn- men are SIGNIFICANTLY more likely to be addicted to watching porn than reading it (women are more likely to be addicted to reading it). reading it is fake- no women get hurt directly by reading porn (i know you shared your experiences about how it normalized age gap relationships and played into you being groomed- however i feel that is more indirect than direct- i am so so sorry you went through that though) but porn is responsible for SO MUCH human trafficking- mens sexual addictions are so so much more harmful than womens sexual addictions. mens sexual addictions prop up the human trafficking industries- womens help get more books published.
yes yes about the book covers!!! i’m so tired of the idea that “illustrated = for kids” literally even in this article there’s no way someone with a brain would look at icebreaker and charlotte’s web and think they belong in the same age range can we be serious 😭😭 especially if we were to go and look at the current design motifs of middle grade/young adult novels currently getting published they almost never look like the current illustrated cover trend going on w adult romances.
exactly! also like two pages in there are usually lists upon lists of trigger warnings (for dark romance) and even regular romance/books in general- you realize pretty quick if a book isnt child friendly once you open it
A weird quirk of our time is that this woke, intensive and robust social analytic lens is used mercilessly against everyone except those who primarily wield it: if we’re being honest, mostly white women. My actions are meticulously dissected and picked apart until evidence for a guilty verdict is uncovered, but when you make even a basic attempt to turn the lens around on the person wielding it (by, for instance, saying ‘hey the covers of these books are a little weird) you are met with outrage. It is maddening and can only result in someone who is unaware of their own shortcomings and is thus doomed to a life devoid of self awareness.
Everyone should read Dune, lots of spice in that one
I think you mean “Everyone SHOULD read DUNE, lots of SPICE in THAT one.”
Different kind of spice, actual spice, not "spicy"...
No he wrote it right, this isn’t tumblr.
The spiciest
NERDS😆😆😆
This comment means so much to me hahahahaha
HA
The first two books were great. Not sure I finished the third though
The Dune novels are like radioactive decay. Each book is half as good as the one that precedes it. I made it to God Emperor and then quit. Wish I’d stopped at the first.
This is hilarious. I slogged through the whole thing, but I totally agree.
God Emperor is my fav. I love a little body horror love story. But yes after that I shrugged and slogged through them.
Each book is less than the last. I would recommend not to read past book 4. They really get bad past that book. I was warned by a clerk at the used bookstore when I first read the series. Hopefully you’ll listen to me, I didn’t listen to him. And I can never get that time back, and brain bleach just doesn’t work.
The third one is when it got weird. The ending is so strange.
🤣🤣🤣🤣 Good one!
I was a bookseller during the peak of booktok and I can confirm that the covers were a continual issue for us. Every few months there would be a company wide email making sure we hadn’t misplaced erotica in the teen section, and it is genuinely impossible to tell at a glance whether you are looking at a teen romance or smut with this style of illustration.
I would have women on the daily walking up to me and asking for the smuttiest stuff we have and then confirming that they have already read everything I could list for them. We had young teenage girls coming in to buy Haunting Adeline, and we would have to talk to their parents in the store to make sure they knew what they were about to allow their kid to buy. One mother said I know, she will find it somewhere else if I don’t let her buy it here, and gave in.
I never once had an awkward interaction with any man buying even the most pornographic manga, but weekly would have multiple women asking for spicy books openly and invasively. If the male customers were speaking to me the way the female customers were, with the same frequency, I think I would’ve quit.
I think it is specifically this cutesy cover design language, and the childish terminology such as ‘booktok’ and ‘spicy’, that give this genre innocence and plausible deniability when it comes to accusations of readers, or the content of the books themselves, being inappropriate. It made it difficult as a bookseller, and difficult as a human, to reconcile the ethics of the whole situation. It’s legitimate and fair for any adult woman to read the books she enjoys reading, but once you start to speak openly in public and on the internet about spicy or smutty content in books, just know that you have a 14 year old girl tagging along with you to the bookstore now, and 18 year old me has to talk to her parents about it.
Needless to say you hit the nail on the head with this piece.
As someone who's not on the clock app or social media and doesn't read smut books, this is a whole new world of wild behaviour to me. I feel like since COVID, people have just become absolutely feral and have no real understanding of appropriate public behaviour anymore. I used to work in a public library and the spiciest shit I ever dealt with was sweet old ladies borrowing absolute truckloads of black label Mills and Boons. They didn't want to have a conversation about it though!
I worked at a public library and the things I heard from teen girls to little ole ladies were quite spicy. But maybe either people felt comfortable around me or maybe where I worked was cut from a different cloth?
I live in a country where there's laws against sexual harassment in the workplace and making a public library employee have a conversation with you about your masturbation literature is harassment. It's not appropriate.
I guess the only thing I'm pushing back against then is that these things are something that has happened as a result of covid or tiktok. I worked in a library prior to both.
the part you list about daughters coming in to Haunting Adeleine doesn't feel new to me. I was an avid reader when I was young and I'm no spring chicken now. I was reading stephen king and everyone was reading flowers in the attic in fourth grade. VC andrews was the hot thing to read and our parents didn't care. I remember regarding covers my mother only ever intervened on one book called "The very last virgin of hobeck high" - because of the title. It wasn't spicy in the slightest and instead was a story about a teen facing those kinds of pressures.
and holy hell, whats been going on with Warrior Cats for a long time makes me ashamed to not have read them and knowing what kids were reading.
The covers of many of these books did not offer very much of a warning. (I do take issue with the covers above, but I can tell you exactly where some of these covers are modelled on and its not tiktok, its modelled on capitalizing on the success of fanfiction on places like episode interactive and maintaining the market who originally grew up on those kinds of stories as they pass into adult hood).
I'm not saying that there isn't a conversation to be had (we can always improve as a society), or that how we experience the delivery hasn't ridden the flutters of the future into the present, but from personal experience, many of these things are not a new phenomena in the slightest; they just look different in certain ways because the future always looks a little different than the past.
Books with sex scene were always popular even when I was a teenager in the 90s. But we were also reading widely and just happening upon a sex scene in a book we were already reading became a point of discussion. If it's got to a point that people refuse to read books they can't masturbate to, that's akin to porn addiction.
I think my question would be, given the very real risk of child grooming using erotica materials - do we think there is an actual benefit to the kids reading this badly written, smutty crap? If not, we err on the side of caution until we're sure young adults are mature enough for the adult reading section.
I honestly have no problem with making sure adult books are in the adult section; I also think the covers need a redesign as well; content warnings should be in the front of the book, as well as basic spice levels. I think this would go a long way to helping parents and kids be able to talk about book selections.
My feeling though is that this underlying issue isn't a new thing. From violence and sex in books (literally, I am begging you all to read the warrior cats series. Its craycray), to misleading covers, to people chitter chatting about it, to the way we police women's sexuality etc. If I had to guess I've got over a hundred pulp novels in my house where I could open a page to a rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment or other similar scene. There are some new aspects (booktok, online access, though, by my teens people were uploading pdfs) because time passes but the core is still there. As a fourth grader I could access any book that I wanted.
Out of curiosity, do you have any research on people using smutty books as a path to grooming? (one from actual sociological scientists, im a little weary of pearl clutchers passing concerns off as causative rather than interrogative. Concerns are valid, but that doesn't make them causative data). not a gotchya or disagreement, I'm more curious and like to learn more about the world.
That's not really something I'd like in my search history 😀but here in the UK you can be investigated for child abuse if you are knowingly providing media to children with sexual content for the purposes of grooming. Its well-known that paedophiles and groomers introduce children to explicit material to normalise their abuse, so it depends on how it is used, but its not a stretch to say that sexually explicit books with cartoonish covers could help groomers to provide young teens with material to influence them (or alternatively, to use to blackmail them with, by telling their religious or conservative parents they have these at home). Personally, I just don't think its worth the risk when there are so many options to keep this material away from young people. There are lots of uk based sites about protecting children from grooming, such as the NSPCC or CEOP, which might give a bit of background if that helps?
ahh. Ok. I see now. Yeah, the childlike covers really get under my skin tbh. I know how some of them got there (literally one I just saw is emulating episode interactive) but if I'm going to read adult material I'm not really interested in teen covers. Gives me the ick.
Wait what’s wrong with Warrior Cats??
the amount of murder, infantacide, gr*pe, emotional and physical torture, abuse, including between parents and children, and romantic partners, incest, etc. makes game of thrones look tame.
Warrior cats were originally published for an adult audience, until someone decided that they would market them to children.
That makes so much sense.
i think you're exaggerating, i read those books as a kid and id describe as violent sure but not ever sexual
After four kids, spanning a huge swath of time of warrior cats and several volumes in my house, I'm not exaggerating. You might not have clocked them because you were a kid, or you might not have clocked them because they weren't written to be smut. But what I wrote is in there in the series somewhere and more than once.
Whoa!! I had no idea. 🙁
I felt very much the same way. I worked in a bookstore while I was 23, and I would feel so awkward having to ring-out customers who were clearly teenagers that wants books that I very well knew had inappropriate content for their age; yet there wasn't anything I could really do about it. I believe I had a conversation once with a coworker, who was a teenager herself, wherein we were wondering, "Should we start carding people for these books?" I don't think that would be a good solution, mind you, but that conversation exemplified just how uncomfortable all this made us. There were a few times parents had to be talked to, but most of the time they either weren't there or they didn't care because they themselves were fans of the book.
You are unbelievably the only voice of reason I've heard in the community on this topic. It doesn't need to be so sensitive... I'm not coming after you for loving smut. I just don't want it marketed to children, okay? Why are you mad about that 💀 the quality of books are just not the same anymore either... Authors are having to sell a new fetish instead of a new world, theme, idea, conflict, etc. I've dnf-ed so many books because you actually just sound like a horny 14 year old trying to be relevant with tiktok lingo. I thought this was supposed to be an old timey fantasy realm 😭
So much respect to you for putting this out there. Every single word of this was so true to me. The lack of ability to grasp nuance is so incredibly confusing given the community, as you pointed out. This is what we do! Readers don’t only understand nuance they SEEK IT. We seek character, relationship, and plot development.
I absolutely read spicy books. I also read tons of other stuff. If I told another grown up that all I ever watched on tv was “too hot to handle” people would think I was stupid and vapid. Why is this different?
Again thank you.
I feel so seen reading this. I've shared the same perspective for a while but received such insane backlash for voicing even the smallest bit of concern when I was on bookstagram. People who want to analyze this concept are called "anti-feminist" or "prude" almost immediately just for wanting to take a deeper look at why the romance genre has become so shallow and superficial.
They can get pretty aggressive when you point a mirror back at them. For a group of “readers” the community is surprisingly unwilling to analyze anything they consume lol
It sounds from your descriptions here much more like a fan community than a reader community.
i’ve noticed a lot of MAGA women are attracted to the erotica/shallow romance genre.. maybe that’s why the readership is more aggressive
I think aggressive commentary is not isolated to MAGA. Go in the comment section in Robert Reich’s substack (you can’t get more polar opposite than that) and make the slightest critique and you will be verbally flogged, drawn and quartered.
People who enjoy erotica cross all party lines, hun. Not sure why this of all things was made political. 🙄
I could not agree more with your argument here: “The quality of the writing has lowered and the books have a higher density of sex scenes.” My husband and I (avid readers, writers, who met on BookTok…but like, a different side 😂) are constantly talking about the state of writing. To your point, yes it has always existed but my argument for the past 3-4 years is while it has always existed, it hasn’t always been the point of fiction to the degree that it is now. YA is no longer safe for their intended audience.
As someone well versed in addiction, that’s what I contribute a large portion of the responses to. It DOES change the chemical composition of your brain. It DOES have an affect on your body and mind. It is its own kind of addiction.
Such a good, appreciated conversation!
Completely agree with you! Also, I love that you met your husband on BookTok (PG version😂) 🤍
Hahaha I always have to clarify 😅 thank you!!
I completely agree with you Eric and appreciate your vulnerability about your struggle with porn! Voices and stories like yours are so important in the spaces.
I was always a reader, I started with medieval romance novels and Harry Potter. I’ve also been writing ever since. I was not on BookTok and once I discovered, I thought it was about books. Well… it still is, don’t get me wrong, but it seems like sex is more important than anything on it. I’m not asking a Pulitzer Prize, just some basic foundation for the book to make sense. My first dark romance left me a bit shocked but also curious. Two years later and 200 books read, I am in a reading slump that I never experienced before, I feel so tired of overused tropes and trigger warnings (remember when books didn’t even have that?). I’m currently curating my experience and recommendations outside of bestsellers and into a little Discord group and Reddit. Also found a really nice YouTuber who is amazing in her honest reviews. Anyway, thank you for sharing this, made me feel less alone here.
I'm curious why trigger warnings are such a bad thing?
Its extremely painful for someone with (c)PTSD to randomly stumble upon a trigger, and something like 10% of the population has had (c)PTSD at some point in their lives.
Are a few plot points being "spoiled" that much more important than someone's week being ruined by a flashback?
Oh, I sorry, I probably misspoke here! I don’t mean that the trigger warnings spoils the book. I believe the use of it is valid and necessary, the question I made was regarding the absence of it on literature before recently. It makes me wonder if the list of trigger warnings is a natural and welcome evolution in the industry to create a more safer experience for the reader, or if we’re venture more and more into dark themes to feed this new audience that wants it, that we are ending up with the need to have these type of warnings! Why did we not have it back then? Did we have those dark romance books without the warnings? Or is this a new genre that requires this signaling to protect the reader?
Ah I understand now.
That is an excellent point. It's perhaps a parallel "trauma porn" arms race alongside the sexual one, having more to do with being talked about for being the most dark rather than genuinely wanting to discuss these real issues.
I recently read some older books without these warnings and felt pretty unhappy about it. I am not interested in reading rape scenes, especially in any spicy or unexamined way, or to unnecessary further a protagonists growth. My kid ran into a book in a little free library and when the book was done and I was like, oh the title looks good I want to read that, the teen then listed a long list of things that were in it that I should get into a mindset for, knowing my reading capacity is limited. We wrote the warnings I wish had been there into the front of the book.
I pretty much have left older books alone because authors of that age don't seem to know or care what they have (especially ridiculous age gaps) and I'm not into stumbling on unpleasant surprises. I've only regained my capacity to read physical books and part of that upward build is to not become frustrated or upset by the content and I think, despite some more elitist readers/writers tendencies to judge anyone who doesn't follow their idea of what real reading is, thats ok. Reading is reading.
Looking at even shakespeare, or much older stories, I think this is a very long history of darkness, but in the past we didn't seem to care who we dumped it on or instead we went to great lengths to take that choice away from people. At some point we decided it was a good thing to give people choice by being upfront about whats in books, and after decades of being a reader, which some unfortunate interruptions I'm heavily inclined to agree.
Horror is my genre of choice and I can't tell you how many "classics" of the genre from the 70s and 80s I have noped out of due to the absolute misogyny dropping off the page. The inclusion of more diverse voices and perspectives in this genre has really improved it as a whole. Maybe romance needs a shake up like this.
Trigger warnings don’t work. They merely induce unnecessary anxiety. And while Americans may claim to have PTSD at a rate of 10%, that’s absolute nonsense. CPTSD by the way is entirely made-up and has no diagnostic criteria. You pay your doctors far too much money to just tell you all what you want to hear, which isn’t even to discuss the number of narcissists who self-diagnose for victim points.
True PTSD is incredibly rare because of the obvious fact that humans get over things. The brutal facts of our species’ history obviously preclude everybody becoming catatonic whenever something bad happens and then never being able to function again.
Stop coddling, start arse-kicking. It helps nobody to treat them like a delicate flower.
Many romance authors do use trigger warnings! First to my mind is the Butcher and Blackbird series by Brynn Weaver and Ruby Dixon.
You should share the name of the YouTube and Reddit 🫵
I've heard of this little book called Pride and Prejudice. No sex scenes or sex talk of any kind, but it's managed to grab a relatively good sized audience. (Myself included. Best romance novel of all time <3)
Best romance book ever. Full stop.
I'd like to add Persuasion, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Emma, and even Northanger Abbey to the pile! 📚
Not nearly as much of a classic as P&P, but Brandon Sanderson’s “Tress of the Emerald Sea” I would consider a sci-fi romance and is amazing.
How many times can you resell P&P until the returns start diminishing? If we want to stop Booktok we’re going to have to give them something new to read once in a while.
Post of aesthetic, historical or cultural significance.
You are 1000% right, particularly about the fact that booktok girls are not, in fact, shamed like men are shamed. I know women like this irl and it's jarring to hear someone openly talking about their porn (and it is porn) tastes, not only with other women but with/in front of men. This is such normalised behaviour online that it has actually breached containment and people now think it's okay to do this in public.
We are living in a culture that does not respect boundaries around sex, we call this 'sex positive', but it's no wonder actual predators are able to blend in seamlessly, they look normal because everyone else is so weird.
I really liked your post. But what makes me always perplexed is that,just for the cartoonish cover, icebreaker became the symbol of “Booktok is just full of porn addicted”. I’ve read Hannah Grace’s book, and I’m a reader that doesn’t focus on romance or erotica. I find that her books often have a positive and healthy perspective on sex life. Use of protections is always mentioned and discussed betwenn the couple. The protagonist of Icebreaker goes to therapy, and we see her speaking about her issues and insecurities. In general, the main protagonists always have some family/confidence or other type of issue that they analize in their pov. I found the men pov always respctfull, sexy but in more of a funny and comic tone. So I’m just sad that one of the few romance books I read are associated with this discourse 🥲
Also, as much as problematic it is that these books end up in the kids section due to the covers, I always thought that it was a way to make more comfortable reading these books in public or bring them around. I personally feel uncomfortable with the half naked man showing covers.
I read icebreaker and there was a scene where some girls were talking about a male character accidentally making someone pregnant and they said, and I quote: “it’s not his fault, he doesn’t know a lot about pregnancy” and he was a 24 year old athlete having tons of sex lol also I unfortunately felt like the only thing they discussed or talked about in that book was sex. All the time. So I think is a fair example to use, sadly
The books don't need to have naked man covers, but it's not a choice between that or cartoons. There's a wide world of possibilities that don't resemble children's books.
This! Like, we could keep cartoon art covers and just make them clearly romance and that would help. Ali Hazlewood covers are like that and I don’t think anyone would put them in the kid section on accident. Jasmine Guillory too!
This, but also I personally really love Ali Hazelwood. I like that her characters are relatable and the plot is well constructed. her level of spice is tame compared to a lot of other authors but I appreciate that. It feels like a true romance novel.
I also don’t love when some of these novels romanticise bad behaviour/morals from either party (borderline abusive). It makes me worry that young women will read it and think that it’s acceptable to treat others or be treated in a negative way.
I used to think the same thing about Ali. But her last 3 books have been sheer erotica with no substance and unfortunately she is right up there with everyone else now :(
I loved Ali Hazelwood until I read deep end...yuck
Have not read it, and I am a little worried to now 😂
Alix E Harrow is another good, low-spice author you should check out!
If you're gonna read spice in public, at least own it (or get an e-reader)... it makes me more uncomfortable having a childish cartoon on adult reading material, same as I find pornified anime really gross. Every person I know who's into erotic anime (and 100% of them are male) also have paraphilias and fetishes.
I like the ideas generally, but the average age of the onset of menstruation is 12. A normal range is considered 10-15. I was nearly 13 when I got my first period and my doctors were surprised it took so long. Just because your friends got theirs later doesn’t mean you got your abnormally young.
Yeah, this take struck me as odd. The average age for first periods has been steadily declining over the years, due to a number of factors (diet, general health, etc). Getting your period at age 12 is pretty normal.
1. Thank you so much for opening up to us about your experience as a young woman / the impact these books and stories had on your character arc so to speak.
2. As a mother to a toddler (a young woman) I am so grateful you wrote this publication. I am an indie author and feel like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole wondering "why am I the only one seeing this?" "why is everyone fighting to keep the illogical emotional connection / argument to spice etc. instead of conceding that maybe there is a bit of logic to both sides?"
MAYBE when I open instagram I shouldn't see the works c*ck and p&ssy in a quote advertising a book? My husband read it and also said "is this ... a fourteen year old?"
3. I saw Rebecca Ross' Q and A for new adult fantasy and was almost in tears at how she had to make a separate story to address the spice questions. Every single person (almost) was only concerned about the spice. How much. How juicy. How descriptive? What do they do together? *I know you didn't love letters of enchantment series but I just could not swallow how disappointed I felt by the masses only asking about THAT out of all the story building and lore and writing process.*
4. While everyone is so angry and punching their fists at the sky about any piece of nuance brought to the table, they don't realize that they are still being profited off of by the publishing companies. Women's pleasure is now "popular" and trending but it's not for the benefit of us. It's still for the benefit of capitalistic / masculine demand. Wake up!
5. When I brought up that 90% of women who were murdered by their sig others or ex's, that they were stalked first, I lost so many followers. All I said was, I can't read stalker romances because I know this fact and can't unknow it! Who would argue with that? I don't care how cute you make it.
6. Ok! I guess I better go write my own book now lol thank you
I can’t deal with it anymore, why are we romanticising infantile men? ITS SO VERY ANNOYING, because I also think the worst is that it’s SO NOT an actual portrayal of true intimacy in all its imperfection, once again setting unrealistic expectations, creating an illusion on many things inside and outside of the bedroom. Character growth? Plot? Where is it? It sets unrealistic standards ON BOTH SIDES, for appearance and personality, never mentioning the flaws of anyone, aside from having a tragic past. I would say this whole dumbing down of books, has come from the anti-intellectualism which is perpetuated by social media (of course at the forefront of it it’s TikTok)
Hell if they wanna keep the cartoon covers maybe publishers should put that "partental advisory" sticker album have.
i disagree with this take- ive always been a booktok hater but recently ive changed my mind and I feel like this take misunderstands the publishing industry, gender roles, and erotica at large- sorry for how long this review is! ik it seems a bit agressive but honestly it just feels like looking back at my past opinions- so i feel like writing my thoughts out as i continue to develop my opinions rn
“Why do current booktok romance covers look like they could be sharing a shelf with Charlotte’s web if they’re filled with erotic content?” Illustration as a cover style isn't inherently juvenile. Many adult genres, including literary fiction and thrillers, use illustrated covers. Plus, covers that look more like normal and illustrated are less embarrassing to read or have in your house. Also a book having an innocent-looking cover while containing explicit content isn’t new or unique to BookTok. also almost all these books contain explicit trigger warnings at the start- i doubt many people (upon reading the first few pages of the book) wouldnt know what they where getting into
“Teen girls get their periods earlier as well” okay ive never heard this and i looked for some studies but didnt find any
also you talk about how “It’s okay for us to agree to disagree” but immediately say disagreement is like suspicious “makes me wonder which side they are on”
“The quality of the writing has lowered and the books have a higher density of sex scenes.” okay, yeah, i agree with this as a whole. however, this feels largely anecdotal. while i agree, there isnt really any evidence (or even an objective metric) to prove that writing quality has gone down, and I dont necessarily think more sex scenes is a bad thing. i think sex can be a powerful metaphor or just generally increase engagement with books that lead to people thinking more critically about things. but sentence this stood out to me because it highlighted what I see your current gripe with booktok and other publications is
“The industry is just riding that money wave, they don’t care about feminine expression, sexual freedom, etc, etc. No publisher cares about those things, they just care about money.” Yes, money trumps. it always does. BUT the industry getting that influx of money means that these publishers can take on riskier books. A lot of books that you or I enjoy likely wouldnt have been published if the industry didnt feel secure. these “potato chip” novels as you say prop up the industry. they enable the industry to produce more books that DO focus on “feminine expression” or similar.
“And if that is your ONLY connection with reading, how much sex you can find in the book, I am not so sure you really like reading. I am sorry. I am just not lol” you read these books. you enjoy reading these books. youre a reader
“You don’t and never have accepted this level of sexual freedom for the opposite gender.
We in fact shame men for their sexual addictions.”
okay saying women dont accept this level of sexual freedom from men is such a crazy take that im just gonna hope im misunderstanding it. also, 7/10 men watch porn- men are SIGNIFICANTLY more likely to be addicted to watching porn than reading it (women are more likely to be addicted to reading it). reading it is fake- no women get hurt directly by reading porn (i know you shared your experiences about how it normalized age gap relationships and played into you being groomed- however i feel that is more indirect than direct- i am so so sorry you went through that though) but porn is responsible for SO MUCH human trafficking- mens sexual addictions are so so much more harmful than womens sexual addictions. mens sexual addictions prop up the human trafficking industries- womens help get more books published.
yes yes about the book covers!!! i’m so tired of the idea that “illustrated = for kids” literally even in this article there’s no way someone with a brain would look at icebreaker and charlotte’s web and think they belong in the same age range can we be serious 😭😭 especially if we were to go and look at the current design motifs of middle grade/young adult novels currently getting published they almost never look like the current illustrated cover trend going on w adult romances.
exactly! also like two pages in there are usually lists upon lists of trigger warnings (for dark romance) and even regular romance/books in general- you realize pretty quick if a book isnt child friendly once you open it
A weird quirk of our time is that this woke, intensive and robust social analytic lens is used mercilessly against everyone except those who primarily wield it: if we’re being honest, mostly white women. My actions are meticulously dissected and picked apart until evidence for a guilty verdict is uncovered, but when you make even a basic attempt to turn the lens around on the person wielding it (by, for instance, saying ‘hey the covers of these books are a little weird) you are met with outrage. It is maddening and can only result in someone who is unaware of their own shortcomings and is thus doomed to a life devoid of self awareness.
It's both refreshing and infuriating when they outright say "We can be into this kind of thing, but you can't because [oppression Olympics]."
lol why is it refreshing?
At least it's self-aware and honest.